


the seeds of all things are blest (the advantage of withholding your honesty remix)

by zjofierose



Series: elegy in joy [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Keith is fierce, M/M, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), POV Second Person, POV Shiro (Voltron), Pre-Kerberos Mission, Remix, Sad Shiro (Voltron), Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, can i make it any more obvious, shiro is lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-12 13:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19132684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: On your thirteenth birthday, you stayed up all night waiting for a name on your wrist that never came.





	1. we tell beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strangetowns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the advantage of withholding your honesty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6505462) by [strangetowns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangetowns/pseuds/strangetowns). 



> Many, many thanks to @baronvonchop and @quazydellasue for beta-ing!! Couldn't have done it without you two. 
> 
> Written for the Sheith Remix Challenge, and based off a fic by @strangetowns that I loved _a lot_ , and highly recommend reading!!!
> 
> (In fact, I liked it so much, I remixed it _twice_ , so please proceed onward to the next fic in this series!)

Thirteen is the magic birthday, though the gods only know why. It’s not a multiple of four, and that worries you: how will your mark know to show up if the actual anniversary of the day of your birth doesn’t happen? 

No one really knows what causes the marks to appear, but whatever it is, it must know how to handle the vagaries of the western calendar, you decide. You try not to borrow trouble, try not to worry about it; you even convince yourself that the whole thing is silly, and that you will go to bed just like normal. Nonetheless, you lie awake in your bed the night of February 28th, watching your arm carefully as the clock silently blinks over from one month to the next.

Nothing happens. 

Nothing happens on your arm, that is - no sudden sprawl of black ink, no mysterious symbol or careful writing. You lie there until dawn, convinced that you will have to wait until you’re fifty-two to find out who your soulmate is.  _ Fifty-two. _ You try to imagine it, but it seems so old, so far away. A life lived and gone, one foot in the grave. And what about your soulmate? Will they be waiting for you that whole time? Or is your soulmate not even alive yet? Will they be born when you’re already middle-aged, growing into their youth as you fade into your senility? Your mind is full of questions, spinning with fear and resignation, full of the knowledge that yet another thing that everyone else takes for granted, another thing that gets handed to every other person, is not for you. 

It’s fine, you decide around three in the morning, you should have expected as much. Besides, it’s probably for the best - everyone knows those couples who meet at thirteen and barely even graduate, so caught up in each other that they derail into marriage and babies and give up any autonomy they had just to subsume themselves in each other. You don’t want that; you have dreams. Goals.  _ Plans _ . 

Around four, it occurs to you to wonder if this means you won’t live much longer after all. The doctors have said you likely have at least two decades left, maybe three if you’re lucky and take good care of yourself. You’d hoped to at least make it to thirty, to meet your soulmate, have a few good years together. But… maybe this is the universe’s way of protecting someone else. After all, what would it mean to your soulmate to meet you and lose you in who knows how short a span of time? It would be cruel, and you don’t want to be cruel. 

It’s for the best, clearly - the universe is just looking out for you and for whatever nameless person would have been bound to you. It’s a gift, even if the Unmated are one in a literal several million. You’ve always been exceptional, you tell yourself, why change now? And yet...you’ve believed in soulmates all your life, eagerly awaited the revelation of your own destined life-partner, assured by doctors and family alike that the silly matters of your birthday and your illness would pose no hindrance to your ultimate destiny. Now, you lie awake and alone, staring up at the cold light of the stick-on stars in your room, feeling the flame of hope in your chest gust and flicker.

It’s the most alone you’ve ever felt.

—

When you go down to breakfast in the morning with bags under your eyes and your hair sticking up all over your head, your grandparents don’t comment on how you carefully keep your sweatshirt sleeves pulled down. They share a knowing glance and smile softly, passing over your breakfast without a word.

You buy a wider band for your medical wristlet to cover the blank space, and tell no one.

—

Matt Holt is in your class at the Garrison, and while you initially chafe at the concept of a roommate (what with having been an only child), you quickly consider yourself very fortunate that you ended up paired with him. He’s brilliant, outgoing, reasonably clean for a teenage boy, and has a sense of humor that defuses tense situations before they can even start.

He doesn’t bat an eye at the wide band around your wrist, doesn’t side-eye it the way others do in the shower or at the gym. One night after several beers, drunk lingeringly in the sodium glow of the rooftop lights, you work up the courage to ask why.

Matt sighs, rubbing at the carefully looped signature on his own wrist. He wears his bare, like most do, but you’ve never looked at it closely before - you try to afford others the courtesy you wish they would extend to you. Tonight he holds it out to you, and you read the name before you can help it.

“Katie?” 

“Yeah,” Matt smiles softly, rubbing a thumb across it. “She’s a beaut. Long, sandy hair. Big hazel eyes. Smarter than me.” His voice is proud, and you suppress a long-familiar stab of envy at the wistful happiness in his tone. “I knew it’d be her from the time she was born,” he says, “and hers showed up a couple months ago. Turns out I was right. We’re a perfect match.”

You say nothing. You’re not sure you understand where he’s going with this, but you’re too polite to say so. He must see it clearly in your face, though, because he laughs and downs the rest of his beer, shaking his head at your expression.

“That’s not much of an age difference,” you venture, “six years won’t matter at all once she’s our age.”

“No,” Matt agrees easily, “you’re right. It’s way better than some of those couples with forty-year age gaps. And, like I said,” he shrugs, “she’s the total package. Cute. Funny. A certified genius. Also,” he laughs, kicking an empty bottle with his foot, watching as it rolls to the edge of the roof and catches in the gutter, “my baby sister.”

Oh, you think,  _ oh _ . 

“So, yeah,” he says ruefully, nodding at your cuff, “I get having an awkward soulmate. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn't trade Pidge for the world, but.” 

“But,” you say, nodding in understanding. Familial soulmates are uncommon, but not unheard of; nonetheless, they receive the same curiosity and censure as the rest of the less usual bonds. Platonic soulmates, those who have neither a familial nor a romantic bond, are even less common, though there’s speculation that they’re also underreported, as many platonic pairs may lead a life that approximates pairs with a romantic soul-bond. Poly-pairs are even less common, representing about 1% of all bonded relationships, but it’s the Unmarked like you who are the rarest of the rare. You’ve never known another, and though you’ve talked to a couple in online forums, you are, quite literally, almost completely unique.

“Our parents have been totally chill with it,” Matt says, cracking another beer. “They say they’re just happy to have kids who love each other and get along. But some of the rest of the family...and other kids,” he scowls, “you know how they are.”

You nod in understanding. You do, in fact, know how they are.

“Trying to push all this heteronormative romantic bullshit on us. Trying to say that our love is  _ forbidden _ or some fucking nonsense. As though,” he waves his hand, “as though my saying I love my baby sister automatically means I want to fuck her. Jesus.” He slumps, letting his head fall between his knees. “It fucking sucks. I love her more than anything, and I’d never do anything to hurt her. Just because our relationship isn’t what people expect, it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.”

You sit silently for a minute, nursing your beer and listening to Matt breathe heavily. 

“So all those dates you go on,” you start, and Matt throws his head back and laughs.

“I like to bill myself as the perfect practice partner,” he grins, “no need to worry that I’m betraying my soulmate, no need to worry I’ll get attached. I’m the perfect no-strings lay.”

You snort into your nearly empty beer. God. Of course he’s figured this out. Still…

“You don’t think you’ll ever want to be with someone romantically? You don’t think you can fall in love?”

“Nah,” his response is instant, but then he thinks about it a moment longer. “I mean, I guess it’s possible? It wouldn’t hold a candle to what I feel for Pidge, though, so I’m not worried about it. Maybe someday I’ll find someone else with a family match and we can make it work, but I’m not in any hurry.”

You nod. It’s a reasonable expectation, and one you’ve considered for yourself at times - meet someone with a familial or platonic bond and see if you can’t find a little companionship. But even then, you think, you’d be at a disadvantage. They’d be getting the best of you, the entirety of the small, thorny, and stunted love you have to give, and yet you’d still always come in second for them. It’s not that appealing a prospect. 

You sigh, and finish your beer.

 


	2. soldiers and orchards rooted in constellations

You meet Adam in your second year. 

His soulmate is a girl. A two year old girl who lives down the street from him. He babysits often, keeps pictures in his wallet, is clearly delighted with her generally, but also makes no bones about the fact that he is very,  _ very _ gay. 

“It’ll be a platonic bond,” he says on your first date, rubbing a thumb absently across your sleeve. 

“How can you be sure?” you ask, “what if it’s not?”

“Well,” he says, “never say never, I suppose, but if the Kinsey scale is 0-6, I’m a 5.99, so I feel pretty confident about it.”

“And what about her? What if it’s not platonic for her?”

To his credit, he gives it a moment of thought. “I suppose it’s possible,” he says contemplatively, “but I hope that’s not how it turns out. That would be sad for her.”

“You’d love her anyway,” you point out, and you do a very good job of keeping the bitterness out of your voice, if you do say so yourself. 

“I would,” he agrees, “but not the way she would need, and I would feel bad about that. But,” he leans in and smiles, all tawny hair and deep golden eyes, "who wants to worry about that? Right now she’s an adorable two year old who likes ponies, and I’m a handsome twenty year old who likes boys.”

It’s sixteen years until she’s of majority, and by then you may well be no longer walking the earth.  _ What the hell, _ you think, and spread your knees to let him closer.

—

If you had a name on your wrist instead of simple blank skin beneath the device that delivers tiny shocks to your musculature, you’d think the electricity that lights you up like an antenna in a storm when you see him is the proverbial coup-de-foudre of a soulmate match. 

It’s not, because you don’t have a soulmate match, but you can’t tear your eyes from him anyway. 

He beats the pants off all the other students in the sim trials and proceeds to steal your car, and you can’t find it within yourself to be anything other than utterly charmed. You tell him where to meet you and when, and you don’t even bother trying to suppress the pride and elation you feel when you see his name on the entering class roster a month later. 

_ Kogane, Keith _ . You let the shape of it move through your mouth, the initial sharpness of consonant giving way to vowels. It suits him, you think, a small and angry teenager with dark hair and darker eyes that plead for guidance, for affection, when you hold a hand out to him. You can’t quantify what it is that you feel for him, and you don’t really care. He follows you around like a duckling, like a lost dog, and you don’t discourage it. 

“He’s in love with you, you know,” Adam says one night over a glass of wine in your shared apartment, and you look at him in surprise. He sounds jealous, and you didn’t think he could be. His soulmate is four and a half now; her artwork adorns your fridge and his social media icon is a picture of her riding on his shoulders. 

“He’s not,” you say, because you think it’s true and because you don’t know what else to say. 

“He is,” Adam disagrees, and frowns at his dinner plate. “He’s too young for you, Takashi.”

“He’s eighteen in a month,” you answer automatically, and you know it’s the wrong thing as soon as it’s out of your mouth.

“He’s a cadet, and you’re a junior officer,” Adam says, eyes narrowing. “Just because you’re only twenty-three doesn’t make it ok.”

You roll your eyes. “It’s not like that. We’re friends. Even if he does...did... like me like… that, it’s just a crush. He just needs people in his life.”

“Who’s his soulmate, Takashi?” Adam asks softly, and you blink.

“Not me,” you say with confidence, because while you’ve never actually shown Adam the blank place on your arm, he and Matt are the two people in the world you’ve trusted enough to tell. 

“Are you sure?” Adam takes a sip of his wine, swirling the rest of it around his glass. “Have you seen his mark?”

“...no,” you answer softly. “But one-sided marks…”

“Are rare,” Adam nods, “but not as rare as not having one.” His mouth smiles, but his eyes don’t. “You should find out if you’re beating the odds again.”

You exhale hard. You don’t know what to think, or what to say, so you just fold your napkin and stand to clear the table.

—

Keith, it turns out, wears sleeves much like you do. It’s hard to catch him without, and for all that you spend the better part of a week trying to stealthily sneak a glimpse of his bare wrist, you fail utterly.

Eventually, he calls you on it. “Trying to see my mark?” He asks point-blank after a Friday night sparring round in the gym. The two of you are alone, the other students having left for whatever normal people do to celebrate the weekend. You’re here with Keith instead.

“Yeah.” You duck your head in embarrassment, fiddling with your cuff. There’s no point in trying to deny it. 

“Why,” his voice is raspy and dry with amusement, “think we’re a match?”

“No,” you answer honestly, “I was just curious.”

He sighs with resignation, removing his customary fingerless glove and shoving up his sleeve, his face tense as he waits for your reaction. 

You don’t gasp, but it’s a near thing. Where everyone else you’ve ever known, ever seen on TV or in the movies or ever even heard about, has a small name in a neutral tone across their wrist, Keith’s is large and purple and trails vertically from his elbow to the base of his palm. It is like nothing you’ve ever seen, and you reach out without thinking to take his wrist and draw his arm near so you can examine it.

“It’s beautiful,” you breathe, and Keith squints at you like what you’re saying doesn’t track, but you mean it. It’s calligraphic like the characters your grandfather used to write, not quite brushstrokes, but reminiscent of them, a series of strange symbols in a deep, vibrant violet that glows against Keith’s pale skin. “What does it say?”

“I don’t know,” Keith says tiredly, “and neither does anyone else. It’s nothing found on Earth. Experts’ best guess is that it’s a lost language, and my soulmate lived thousands of years ago in some civilization we’ve yet to uncover.”

“Oh, Keith,” you say softly, meeting his eyes in apology.

“Don’t pity me,” he snaps, yanking his sleeve back down. “It’s a gift, as far as I'm concerned. Being soulmates don’t mean shit.”

Keith doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, and you can hear the truth beneath the reflexive irritation. “Do you really think that?” you ask carefully, “that it’s meaningless?”

“Yeah,” he rolls his head on his neck, looking away as he blows out a breath. “The way I look at it, I’m free.” He lifts his gaze to yours defiantly. “I’m not tied to any single person. Fate has no claim on me. I’ll love who I love, and no one can stop me.”

He’s like a star, you think absently, all burning fire and gravitational pull. You wish you could borrow some of that fission for yourself. 

“Good for you,” you tell him, settling a hand on his shoulder, trying not to notice how unsubtly he shifts toward you in response. “Good for you, Keith.”

—

Pidge starts at the Garrison that fall, and she’s everything Matt said. She’s also utterly unbothered by her brother’s romantic hijinx in a way that quietly floors you.

“Why would I care?” she answers calmly when someone implicitly accuses Matt of cheating on their bond. “ _ I’m _ sure not gonna fuck him.” She shrugs, takes a swig of her juice. “Besides, he’s my soulmate. If sleeping with half the population of the Garrison works for him, then I’m glad. I just want him to be happy.”

Matt leans across the table to high-five her, then gives her a noogie that she squirms away from, shrieking. “Best little sister in the world,” he announces with glee, and you wonder what it’s like to be in a bond that’s not underlain with the threads of tension and jealousy that seem to be woven throughout your relationship with Adam.

“Does it ever bother you?” you find yourself asking Pidge later when you’re companionably alone and watching a movie as you both wait for Matt to return from wherever he’s gone.

“Does what ever bother me?” She blinks at you owlishly, round glasses reflecting the overheads.

“Having your brother as your soulmate,” you say with forced nonchalance, “being in a familial bond.”

“No,” she says thoughtfully, “If we didn’t understand each other as well as we do, maybe. But that’s a chicken and egg question, isn’t it? Do we understand each other because we’re soulmates or because we’re siblings? If we weren’t so compatible, would we even be soulmates? Or are we so compatible because we are soulmates?”

You just keep your eyes on the screen and wait for her to work her way around. You’re not built for philosophical debates. 

“He’s been my biggest supporter and best friend my whole life,” she says at last. “I guess maybe someday, if one of us falls in love, it could get complicated, but… honestly I can’t imagine it.” Silence falls between you for a long moment, then she adds, “I understand why you think it’s unfair, though.”

“I don’t…” you blink, and she shakes her head.

“You wear a cuff to conceal your soulmate’s identity; you’re in a relationship with a man who is not your soulmate; and you have a best friend with a soulmark like nothing anyone’s ever seen who’s more than half in love with you. Of course you don’t think it’s fair, Shiro.”

You can’t find it within you to argue, so you keep your attention on the movie in front of you and try not to dwell. 

—

You throw yourself into your work. You hope it will mend the growing rift between you and Adam, but it doesn’t. You worry that it will estrange you from Keith, but it doesn’t do that, either. Rather, he’s suddenly in all your classes, and he’s moved into the same dorm building that you and Matt used to live in, and you’re giving him extra supervised time on the sims, and while you and Adam are eating dinner in strained silence (when you even manage to eat together at all), you’re seeing Keith multiple times a day.

Probably you should feel worse about it. 

“Why are you with him?” Keith asks you one night over fries at the local diner. It’s mid-February and you should be texting with Adam, who is considerately trying to plan you a birthday party, but you’re still mad about the points you lost on your most recent test because he made you stop studying and watch a movie with him. (A 98 instead of a perfect score, and you know you’re being neurotic, but you want to be the best, and 98 isn’t  _ the best _ )

“What do you mean?” you ask, watching as Keith stirs his shake with the metal straw. There’s no malice you can hear in his question, just simple curiosity. You know he likes Adam fine, and Adam doesn’t dislike Keith, per se, he just doesn’t like how much time you spend with him.

“He’s not your soulmate. Why are you with him?”

It’s a really, really good question, you think. And one you really should have an answer to. 

You dig deep. Keith only ever wants honesty from everyone around him, but especially from you.

“Because I was lonely, and he was kind,” you say, and he nods. 

“That’s why you got together,” he answers, his dark eyes half covered by his thick, black bangs. “Why are you  _ still _ together?”

You sigh. “Because what else do I have?” you say, and you hate that you can hear the truth in it. “I only have a limited amount of time, and I…” You pause, not sure how to phrase it so it’s true but not a giveaway. “And I’m not in a relationship with a soulmate, and I don’t want to be alone.”

You can see the mulish look he gets on his face whenever you mention your illness. He’s fearless, always has been, and you won’t be surprised if he takes a swing at the reaper himself when he turns up to collect you someday. 

“If you have limited time,” Keith says, and your eyes widen, because he never, ever, likes to talk about your life expectancy, “shouldn’t you spend as much of it as possible being happy?”

The little shit has you there, you think, and you scrub a hand through your hair, mouth opening to respond when he breaks the eye contact. “Besides,” he says softly, shoulders hunching, “you wouldn’t be alone.”

_ Fuck _ , you think, and close your mouth. The sounds of the diner echo around you, and you open your mouth again to respond, but he beats you to it.

“Does he make you happy, Shiro?” he asks, and you answer him as honestly as you can.

“He did.”

—-

The walk home is cold, and Keith’s fingers start to turn blue halfway there. You can’t hold his hands and walk without tripping, and also  _ you can’t hold his hands because you have a boyfriend _ , so you give him your gloves, slipping them carefully onto his thin fingers. They’re too big, but they’re fleece-lined and warmed with your own body heat, and you can see the blush rise in his cheeks as he snuggles his fingers down into the fabric.

—

You break up with Adam after your birthday, and move back into the dorms with Matt and Keith.

—-

The end of year party is everything Matt promised it would be, which means it’s big, loud, and full of booze. You’ve got three days before you have to report with three other officers for eight weeks of specialized training, so you give in and get plastered on cheap beer and jello shots, throwing caution to the wind as though you were anything like a normal young adult.

Matt is everywhere, dancing on tables, pouring drinks, toasting his sister and making out in corners. Pidge is busily running the bar, and you’re pretty sure that every time you go over for another shot the price has gone up, but you decide you don’t care, which is no doubt what she’s counting on.

Keith is the most surprising - you’ve never seen him take a drink, but he’s at least two sheets to the wind and working his way up to three, his body loose and eyes sparkling and wide. He’s beautiful, and he’s eighteen, and you are single, and you are allowed to notice. 

He corners you late into the night, trying to shout into your ear, but the music’s too loud, and it’s too hot anyway, so you guide him out into the balmy night where the relative silence is an instant relief. Your ears ring with it, and you both flop down on the grass, staring up at the stars. They’re spinning a little faster than you would actually prefer, but closing your eyes is worse, so you pretend it’s just the effects of low-earth orbit and try to relax as the Milky Way wheels around.

Keith’s voice is languid in the dark, rolling into your ear like a wave, but the meaning of it escapes you. He’s got his sleeves pushed up for once, and you can see the sharp lines of his mark standing out against his skin even in just the moonlight. You want to trace the shapes with your fingers, and before you realize what’s happening, he’s flinching away and you withdraw your hand in shame.

“Sorry,” you say, “I’m sorry, I should never have…”

“It’s okay, Shiro,” he says, scooting back next to you, “you just surprised me. Here.”

He stretches his bare arm out toward you, and the touch of your finger to his skin is electric. You’re sure neither of you breathe as you use your finger to trace the shapes from his elbow downward, and the flesh beneath your hand bursts into goosebumps, Keith’s hand faintly trembling. His eyes on you are galaxies, wine-dark and full of wheeling stars, and you’re possessed suddenly to give as you have been given, reaching for your wristlet before you can think it through.

He catches his breath as your hand drags at the clasp, and then it’s off, and the heavenly light is reflecting off your own bare, unmarked skin.

Keith breathes, and you shake, and then his hand is reaching out to touch that blank space that hasn’t felt the skin of another human in over a decade, and you nearly choke on your own tongue at the sensation of it. The drag of his finger is a revelation, and if you weren’t so drunk, you’d have something to say.

The best you can manage is this: “See,” you say, “this is why. I have no one. I’m destined to be alone.”

“No,” Keith shakes his head firmly, the confidence of the gesture only very slightly dispelled by the way he lists slightly to starboard as he does it. “No, Shiro.” He raises your wrist to his lips and holds it there, mouth warm and soft against your oversensitized skin before bringing your hand back down even as his gaze remains locked on your own. You think your heart may stop. “No, Shiro. You are not alone. You are  _ free _ .” 

He lifts his hands, places them on either side of your face, then leans in so that your foreheads are pressed together. “Listen, Shiro: You get to  _ choose _ .” His grip is hard, nearly painful, but the words that fall from his lips burn their way into your brain. “You choose, Shiro. Love who you want.” He leans back, looking at you serious as the end of the world.

“ _ Promise me _ ,” he says fiercely, and you’re helpless to do anything but nod your acquiescence. “Love who you want.”

 


	3. I cannot say the end

You wake up hungover as shit, but hopeful for the first time in you don’t know how long. It’s the first day of break, and you have to catch the shuttle into town so you can spend the holidays with your grandfather. You want to see Keith before you go, but his door is firmly shut, and a quiet knock doesn’t rouse him. You pull up your padd and send him a quick comm ( _ remember to drink some water, i’ll see you in a week - S _ ), and then you have to hurry down the hall to catch your lift before you can see if he comms you back. 

It’s good to be home, even if it is always a strange adjustment from your time in desert barracks to the seaside green humidity of the house you grew up in. You break a sweat just walking the mile from the bus stop to your front porch, your hair limp and flopping in your eyes. It’s worth it to see the smiles on their faces when you come walking up the steps, though, and you let yourself be pulled into quiet hugs and held. 

The litany of questions over dinner is the usual sort of thing: how are your studies, how are your tests. Matt comms you in the middle of the meal, and you put him on projector so that he can wave enthusiastically and inquire seriously about your grandparents’ health. They have always loved Matt, and the feeling is very much mutual, so you let your attention drift as he catches them up on his latest girlfriend, Pidge’s rise through the cadet ranks, and his family’s new dog. It’s easy to let your mind wander to the events of last night, of Keith’s hands on your face and voice in your ear.

When the call is over, your grandfather turns to you, a smile in his eyes. 

“You seem happier,” he says, “are you seeing anyone? Have you met your soulmate?”

“No,” you answer, rubbing your wrist with a twinge of guilt. “Not my soulmate. But I have been spending a lot of time with someone.” You can’t help the way your smile grows at the thought of Keith’s quick hands and quicker wit, his sharp smile and his soft eyes. “I don’t know that we’re officially dating, but… maybe we will.”

“Will we meet him?” your grandmother asks, pouring more tea for you. “Will he be there for the Kerberos launch?”

“Yeah,” you answer, the wheels in your mind turning over. You have three tickets to the launch; one for each of your grandparents, and one for your soulmate/significant other, which you would have given to Adam, but…”yeah,” you answer again. “You’ll meet him then. And I think you’ll like him.”

Your grandparents murmur approvingly at each other, and your grandfather puts an extra sweet on your dessert plate with a soft smile, “to celebrate.”

It’s good to be home. It will be better, you think, to be back.

—

The next term (your final term, you realize, at least for a while) starts, and your workload immediately doubles. You’re still leading sims and finishing your own advanced coursework, but now that you’re also officially the Kerberos pilot finalist you’re pulled into mission planning and prep. Your notes have footnotes, and while your doctors fully clear you for extended spaceflight, you pursue a strength training and nutrition regimen that makes all of your previous body work pale in comparison. 

You take it all in stride, because this, this is your dream, this is what you’ve spent your whole life aiming yourself toward. All of your previous shortcomings and letdowns, the loss of your parents, the betrayal of your body, your lack of soulmate with whom to share your self and your life, all of it falls away next to this. You will be the first pilot to reach this far out in the solar system, the first to land a shuttle on a moon of Pluto. Who knows what you’ll see? Who knows what you’ll discover? The sheer exuberance of it all carries you through weeks of sixteen-hour days, dropping into your bed to sleep the sleep of the just before rising to do it all again. 

—

Week six finds Matt in your bed when you open the door to your small studio at 10:00 p.m. one night, clutching your pillow and gritting his teeth. You change into your pajamas and brush your teeth, then come and sit next to him, scooting him over wordlessly so that you can shove your legs under the covers.

“Trip’s coming up,” you observe, and he nods, his face grim. “You gonna be ok?”

“Yeah,” he says, and you never doubted it, but you’re glad he knows it too. “Just… Pidge. We’ve never been apart more than a night or two in her entire life. And honestly, at this point, I don’t remember all that much before she was born, and it’s just…”

You exhale softly and wrap an arm around him. This is the side of soulmates you don’t miss, you suppose, this tetheredness, this sense of potential loss that accompanies every major decision.

“Your dad’s going to be with you,” you say, because it’s true - Commander Holt has been selected as the leader of the mission and the head scientist. It’s a small crew, just you piloting, Holt Sr. commanding, and Matt to log and chart all the data. “He’s leaving his soulmate, too.”

“I know,” Matt says, “but they’ve done it before. Dad’s done several deep-space missions, though not any in a while. Mom doesn’t love it, but she knows how to cope. Pidge… she’s still so little. What if she needs me, and I’m not there?”

There’s a hitch in his voice, and you let him clear his throat before you answer. 

“Then your mom will be here for her,” you say, “just like she’ll be there for your mom. And we’ll still be able to talk to people, you know- it’s just that there’ll be a time delay.”

“I know,” Matt says resignedly, “but it’s not the same. I don’t mean to pull the whole, ‘ _ when you meet your soulmate, you’ll understand _ ’ bullshit on you, but…”

“No,” you say, “I get it. It’s tough.”

“Yeah.” Matt sighs hard, and you lie down, adjusting the covers, and palm the lights off. He lies down next to you like you haven’t done since you were cadets, the silence warm and comfortable even if his breathing is suspiciously snuffly. 

“Should’ve known you’d still have these ridiculous glow-in-the-dark stars,” he says finally, a faint laugh in his voice, and you elbow him in the dark to make him laugh harder. “You gonna paint some in your bunk on the ship, too?”

“Won’t need to,” you answer sleepily, “we’ll have the real thing.”

He murmurs something in response, but you’re already drifting off.

—

When you’re not in the gym or in meetings or in classes or doing some other sort of required prep, you spend your time with Keith. It’s no different, at least on the surface, than it used to be - you spar, you grab meals together, sometimes he comes to your room to study. But there’s something relaxed in him now, something easy. You’re drawn to it like a moth to flame. 

“How’s the trip prep?” he asks one night when you’re bent over your desk, glasses shoved up onto your forehead. 

“Okay,” you answer absently, shuffling through paperwork on your padd before turning to face him. “I think it’s harder on Matt, you know,” you shrug, “the whole soulmate thing.”

“No, I don’t know,” Keith says with a little smile, and you laugh. You guess he wouldn’t, after all. 

“I hear it sucks,” you say, “Matt’s really torn up about it. I mean, I’m sure he’ll be okay, but. I know it’s hitting him hard.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, his voice more serious. “Pidge is putting a good face on it, but I know she’s pretty depressed. She keeps threatening to stow away.”

“You don’t think she’d really…” A sudden sense of alarm grips you. If anyone could manage it, it’d be Pidge. 

“No,” Keith shakes his head, “no, she knows better. It’s a long and carefully rationed trip, and you all will only have enough food, water, and air for the three of you. She’s smart; she knows if she did, you’d just have to turn around and drop her back off, and she wouldn’t want to ruin the mission for that.”

“Yeah.” You shrug. “Well, I guess it’s the upside of being broken. None of this heartache nonsense.”

Keith stares at you, and you blink in surprise. 

“You’re not broken, Shiro,” he says, tone fierce. “You’ve never been broken.”

“Oh, Keith,” you sigh, looking away. Honestly, his faith in you is touching, but, “I’m broken in so many ways. It’s fine- I don’t mind anymore.”

“You’re not,” he says again, and stands up from his perch on your couch to walk over until he’s directly in front of you and cannot be ignored. “I’m not. Just because we’re not what society expects, that doesn’t make us not whole.”

“Keith,” you say helplessly, and he reaches out to you, pulling your head to his solar plexus and wrapping his arms around your shoulders. He smells like sweat and engine grease, a hint of ozone clinging to his jacket. You give in and wind your arms around his small, firm waist, letting your eyes close as you lean into the warm muscle beneath your cheek. 

“We’re real people too, Shiro,” he murmurs into your hair, his hands tight around your back. You bury your face in his shirtfront and breathe.

—

The spring term passes in a heartbeat, starting out grey and rainy and moving into blistering heat in the blink of an eye. The ship stands gleaming several miles away, and the trips out to it become daily. 

It’s three days to launch and your third launch ticket is burning a hole in your pocket, but it’s been so busy you don’t know when you’re going to get two words out to Keith, let alone ask him to come. 

He solves the problem for you when he shows up at your door after midnight two nights before launch. He’s in sleep pants and a white t-shirt, his hair sticking up all over his head, dark circles under his eyes. 

You open the door and he crosses the room to your bed and sits down, pulling his knees up and wrapping himself into a small ball from which only his riot of hair and his giant dark eyes extend. You let him sit there while you finish the last of your packing, folding away the clothes you won’t need into a duffle bag, settling your books into a crate with your few assorted knick-knacks and your spare coat. 

Eventually you finish your tasks for the night (36 hours and counting, a countdown that never leaves your mind these days) and change, performing your nightly ablutions and coming to settle on your knees in front of him. 

“Hey,” you say, and reach out to wrap your fingers around the boney ball of his ankle. 

“I’m going to miss you,” he says, apropos of nothing, and you’ve always admired that fearlessness in him, the ability to say whatever he thinks without waiting for permission. 

“I’m gonna miss you, too,” you say, and stand up, holding out a hand. “C’mere.”

There’s music playing in your room, just low - you always like to have something on in the background to distract the edges of your mind and help you focus. The current song is something from your grandparents’ era, soft and sweet, and as he takes your hand, you pull him to his feet and into your arms. 

He goes willingly, melting against your chest like he’s meant to be there, and your traitorous heart thumps sideways in pleasure at how he fits under your chin, at how his hand folds carefully into your own. 

“Keith,” you start, but he shakes his head hard, and you acquiesce, falling silent as you move the both of you back and forth to the strains of music floating in the air. 

“I know,” he says finally, “I know you have a hard time with knowing how to feel about people because…”

“Keith,” you interrupt him, and he blinks up at you, “I think I’m in love with you. I don’t know how it’s going to work, what with…”

His mouth on yours stops your words in their tracks, but you can’t regret anything so wonderful as the feeling of his hands coming up to cradle your face even as they pull you down to reach him, as the way his torso feels pressed against yours as you wrap him up in your embrace and hold him close to you. Everything fades away but the touch of his lips and the steady beating of your heart, and when he finally pulls back, you brush the hair back from his smiling face with your hand, and he turns to press a kiss to your palm that makes your knees weak. 

“Come to the launch,” you say, “please?”

His eyes widen. “Your soulmate ticket? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, and lean in to press your foreheads together. You close your eyes, because it’s easier to get the words out like this, when he’s not overwhelming all your senses. “You told me I’m free, Keith,” you say, and you can hear his intake of breath as he clutches at your waist, “you said I’m free to choose. You made me promise,” you laugh, and he makes a noise that is half chuckle, half sob. “You made me promise I’d choose who to love.”

You pull back, and you’ve never seen more stars than are shining in his eyes right now. 

“Keith,” you say, feeling your heart beat with the thought of the adventure before you, and even more at the hope you’ve never before allowed yourself, a vision of someone waiting for you when you return, heart and arms open for you. “Keith, I choose you.”


End file.
